D&D General Some Interesting Stats About D&D Players!

The full cover spread for Phandelver and Below, by Antonio José Manzanedo​

GeekWire has reported on the recent D&D press event (which I've covered elsewhere). Along with all the upcoming product information we've all been devouring over the last day or two, there were some interesting tidbits regarding D&D player demographics.

• 60% of D&D players are male, 39% are female, and 1% identify otherwise
• 60% are “hybrid” players, who switch between playing the game physically or online
• 58% play D&D on a weekly basis
• 48% identify as millennials, 19% from Generation X and 33% from Generation Z
• The majority of current D&D players started with 5th Edition

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, it’s 1% who identify as other than male or female, which rules out a lot of trans respondents who do identify along the binary. Also, 1% is twice our portion of the global population. Of course, that number is higher in more developed countries, but still, a full percent of the D&D playerbase means there’s more of us playing D&D than there are boomers playing it, if this data is right.

True, and IMO the percentages on enbies and other trans folk are a huge under representation due to stigma, so who knows what the real numbers are, but it is interesting that so many D&D creators are female or non-binary. I’d say the majority, but then I don’t see a lot of the gross segment of D&D creators who do seem to be 99% white cishet guys.

Whereas to the conspiracy theorists, I’m on the opposite end of the probability spectrum from birds and Finns. Got Q-angles for days.

I’m afraid to ask…but…what’s a Q-angle?

I do agree that the player base from 5e of current players(including older editions and retroclones and pathfinder) is probably the largest, but thats based on feeling and my own experience, not evidence.

WOTC likes to make blanket statements about the dnd marketplace, players in general, or the popularity/growth of dnd that are not based on any viable evidence. They don't have any evidence to back up these claims, and if they do they're not releasing the data so there is no way to verify their statements.

Why would they? It’s a publisher of games, not a scientific journal.

Companies rarely release the raw data of their marketing research. It's not a lack of evidence, it’s that they are not sharing the evidence. And why should they? To convince rando grumpy fans on the internet upset they are aging out of the marketplace?

This thread is full of, "I don't like the data, so the data must be flawed".

Yeeeep. They always are.

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm not saying wotc doesn't have data, I'm saying there is no possible way to get accurate data on the hobby because of how the game is played and spread. They may have accurate data for a specific subset of the hobby, but they never say that, they always claim their data is global and represents the entire player base when that is impossible in practice.

Wotc always makes hyperbolic claims and expects us to believe them instead of giving evidence to support said claims.

Any collection of data is imperfect. You do the best you can with the tools you have. WotC's marketing data has never been perfect, it would be impossible to do so, but it's the best in the biz. And it's not binary, the data isn't "perfect" versus "useless". Using their imperfect, but useful marketing data to help them make decisions about the game is better than not using any marketing data at all, like TSR back in the good old days.

Could WotC improve their marketing game? Sure, as any and every company could. Are the folks in charge of the marketing data collection fully aware of this and work it into their process? From an outsider perspective, it certainly seems so to me.

You keep claiming that WotC is making all of these hyperbolic claims . . . . I've never seen when WotC shares this data, them claim that the data represents ALL D&D players. They have never made that claim. Never. If I'm wrong, give me the links. Heck, the OP we're talking about here is second-hand reporting itself, not straight from WotC itself.

 

[MGibster]

Yep, and even the youngest are approaching 30. Which makes it kind of funny that "Millennial" is still used as a synonym for "young person" in many circles...

Boomer has also become more commonly referred to as anyone with old fashioned ideas. I was told that my putting two spaces behind a period at the end of the sentence marked me as a boomer. But as a Gen Xer, I don't really care what people call me.

 

[Charlaquin]

True, and IMO the percentages on enbies and other trans folk are a huge under representation due to stigma, so who knows what the real numbers are,

Very true, and lately there’s been a significant increase in younger people identifying as nonbinary, presumably due to a combination of increased acceptance and broad cultural changes to how we think about and discuss gender in general.

but it is interesting that so many D&D creators are female or non-binary. I’d say the majority, but then I don’t see a lot of the gross segment of D&D creators who do seem to be 99% white cishet guys.

Go figure, a game built around inhabiting different identities would be especially appealing to those of us who’s identities are at odds with who society tells us we should be.

I’m afraid to ask…but…what’s a Q-angle?

Some conspiracy-minded people have convinced themselves that basically every public figure is secretly trans. “The Q-angle” is their pseudoscientific way of trying to identify secret trans celebrities and politicians by drawing lines on photos of them and pretending that indicates anything meaningful about the person’s bone structure - particularly the angle their thigh bones descend from their pelvis.

Here’s a video where a couple of queer YouTubers point and laugh at these buffoons, if you’re interested:

Spoiler

 

[jmartkdr2]

The sun is not real? What about that shiney ball of light in the sky. I mean, I live in Ireland and even there we occasionally see it.

Mass hallucination. By everyone, everywhere, for all of human history. Obviously.

/s

 

[Dire Bare]

Some conspiracy-minded people have convinced themselves that basically every public figure is secretly trans. “The Q-angle” is their pseudoscientific way of trying to identify secret trans celebrities and politicians by drawing lines on photos of them and pretending that indicates anything meaningful about the person’s bone structure - particularly the angle their thighs descend from their pelvis.

Here’s a video where a couple of queer YouTubers point and laugh at these buffoons, if you’re interested:

Spoiler

Huh.

I shouldn't be surprised, but yet . . .

People are nuts.

 

[Lanefan]

I believe they can get pretty good approximations however, unless you believe that there is no correlation between say, how many PHBs of an edition were sold and how many players that edition had

Maybe, though comparing 0e-1e-2e to later editions in this way has to account for the proliferation of easy-to-find online pirated copies of the later ones; an issue that really didn't exist in the 70s and 80s.

 

[mamba]

Maybe, though comparing 0e-1e-2e to later editions in this way has to account for the proliferation of easy-to-find online pirated copies of the later ones; an issue that really didn't exist in the 70s and 80s.

I can find 3e to 5e just as easily, and 0e to 2e did not proliferate in the 70s and 80s that way when it might have been useful. These days you download a torrent of all 1e and 2e as PDFs and then it sits on your HD, almost never looked at and certainly not played

I do not expect the number of players who use pirated copies to be significant for any edition.

 

[Mort]

Purely anecdotal but Ive always been oldest or nearly the oldest at my tables for a long time. I’m 50 and it’s pretty rare I’ve had any takers for my games from anyone older than me.

Interesting,

I'm 48, the youngest in one group (the one I primarily DM) and the second youngest in my second group.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Mass hallucination. By everyone, everywhere, for all of human history. Obviously.

/s

Mass heliocination.